Members of the United Nations Security Council are scheduled to hold a closed-door consultation late Thursday on “the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.”
The meeting was requested by the Kingdom of Bahrain, with the support of Colombia, Denmark, Greece, France, Latvia, Pakistan, Russia, and the United Kingdom, following the receipt of a letter dated 1 June from the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine regarding recent developments in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The Council is expected to receive a briefing from Ramesh Akbarov, Deputy United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
According to the Palestinian letter, several recent Israeli measures in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are described as efforts by Israel to further consolidate what the letter characterizes as the annexation of Palestinian territories.
In the West Bank, the measures include approval for the construction of more than 3,400 housing units in an area east of Jerusalem. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the development would isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, contributing to the fragmentation of the occupied Palestinian territory and further undermining the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the project could result in the displacement of 18 Bedouin communities with a combined population of approximately 4,000 residents, including the community of Khan al-Ahmar.
On 19 May, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich reportedly instructed Israeli authorities to carry out previously issued demolition orders against the community. The UN human rights office has warned that the decision places Khan al-Ahmar at imminent risk of forcible transfer, an act that it says could constitute a war crime under international law.
